


Sweet Gwendoline's Adventures in Subspace

by Sapphy, SapphyWatchesYouSleep (Sapphy)



Category: Original Work
Genre: And then this happened, BDSM, Crack, Even if it is the most ridiculous thing I've ever written, I'm very proud of this, So please read this even though it's not in a fandom, So there was a bet, Space Opera, Subspace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-14
Updated: 2012-07-14
Packaged: 2017-11-09 23:41:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/459800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphy/pseuds/Sapphy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphy/pseuds/SapphyWatchesYouSleep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So a friend commented on how 'subspace' sounded like something from a scifi show. Which lead to him challenging me to write a scifi fic with as many BDSM terms as possible crammed in. Enjoy the silliness and see how many you can spot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sweet Gwendoline's Adventures in Subspace

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Commander Jato](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Commander+Jato).



“Captain, we’re getting close. Last chance to turn her around.”

The Captain stared blankly at his second in command for a long moment, then blinked and came back to reality. “I’m sorry Laure, what were you saying?”

“I said, this is your last chance to change your mind. You know, about taking her into subspace.”

The Captain shook his head decisively. “No. I know the risks. She can do it. My Gwennie’s never let us down yet.” He patted the control panel attached to his chair in an affectionate sort of way. “She’s a lot strong than people realise.”

“You’re the Captain, Captain,” Laure said, though she didn’t sound convinced. “I’m sure you know exactly what you’re doing and aren’t in anyway just making this up as you go along. And we certainly won’t under any circumstances experience subdrop and all die.”

The Captain nodded and pulled down the com device that hung from the ceiling above his chair. “Captain to the engine room,” he said, and waited until the com device crackled into life.

A voice replied, “Hearing you loud and clear, Cap. We doing this crazy thing then?”

“We are. Ready the engines.”

“I told Laure she wouldn’t be able to change your mind. Engine room out.”

The Captain set down the com and looked at his friend. “How about it then Laure? You with me?”

“Captain, we’re light years from the nearest colony and you sold the escape pods for scrap. I don’t exactly have any choice,” she replied, but she was smiling as she said it. The Captain grinned at her. That was as close to all out support as he was ever going to get from his taciturn subordinate.

_************************************************************_

Cherry surveyed the tangled mass of pipes and valves that was the beating heart of the ship. Ideally they’d need to increase the power by at least 17%, which would probably be impossible. The poor old girl was already running at well over what she had been designed for and it wouldn’t be long before all her panic snaps needed replacing again, which the Captain wasn’t going to like. 

Cherry pressed a hand to the nearest pipe, ignoring the heat burning his palm. “Let’s do the impossible my girl,” he said lovingly.

There was a snort of laughter behind him. “You’re talking to the ship again, Gaffer,” Tony said, a smirk on his lips.

“And you’re hanging around being rude to superior officers instead of getting on with your work,” Cherry replied.

“Done it. You ‘aint never seen a cleaner TPE in your life Gaffer.”

That was the worst thing about having such a naturally talented enthusiastic apprentice, Cherry reflected. It was so hard to keep them in their place.

“You can help me then. We need to up the power outage all we can. We’ll be entering the outercourse any minute now, and I don’t know that even Kliss is a good enough pilot to stop us going into subdrop without some more juice to help her.”

“Can you do that? I though you said she was already running way over her limits.”

“We can at least try.” Cherry relented when he saw the look on the boy’s face. “Come on kid, when have I ever been wrong about Gwennie? I know this ship better than I know myself. She can do it. We’ll have to practically rebuild her once we make landfall, but she’ll last that long.”

Tony didn’t look convinced, but there was nothing more Cherry could say. Going into subspace was always dangerous, even for the custom built ships used by the mining companies. For a scrappy little hunk of junk like Gwen, it was potentially fatal. But the Captain had spoken and he didn’t often lead them wrong.

Cherry picked up an operation spanner and prepared to get down to business.

“Tony, I need you to open the fifth didcap, the one with ‘Do Not Open’ written on it. Open the second third and sixth clover clamps, counting from the right, then seal her back up. I’m going to unplug the smotherbox, ‘cos the last thing we’re gonna need in subspace is for people to _not_ know we’re there. With a bit of tweaking I should be able to reroute its power to the SSC. That’ll give us a bit of a boost for starters.”

_************************************************************_

Klissmaphilia urt Samois stared out of the window that lined the front of the bridge. It was unusual to see one on a starship these days, but she liked it. Somehow, the sight of the infinite abyss of space was comforting. 

The computer bleeped, letting it know that it was seeing what she was – the cloud of meteor shards that marked the outercourse. A graveyard for all the things which didn’t survive subspace.

She’d flown ships through most of the hazards of space, negotiated meteor fields, dodged sun bursts, even ridden the Berkley Horse, and maybe the ship hadn’t always been entirely in one piece at the end of it, but she’d never lost a crew member. But even she’d never tried flying in subspace.

The commercial pilots who flew there were famous throughout the galaxy. Hard men with blank eyed stares who rarely lived to middle age. They referred to the depth of space in which they flew as the humbler.

“If I do this,” she reminded herself, “I’ll be the first Gorean ever to have flown there.” The thought wasn’t all that reassuring.

Her com made a noise like a wounded animal. She’d been trying for months to get Cherry or Tony to fix it, but Cherry kept telling her that making a funny noise wasn’t the same as broken. Tony avoided the bridge as much as possible. Kliss was the first non-human he’d ever met and he was torn between awe and terror. Kliss didn’t mind. He’d come round. She wasn’t sure the captain even noticed her blue skin anymore.

She pushed the button on the com and waited for something other than the horrible noise to come through. Eventually she made out Rory’s voice, faint and crackly, saying anxiously, “Kliss? Kliss answer me. Are you there? I know you’re there because you answered your com… Kliss?”

“I’m here doctor. My com’s on the blink, but I hear you.”

“Ah, brilliant. I just wanted to ask, before we do this whole suicide mission, anything I should know about subspace? Like, any known illnesses it causes or anything like that? I’m asking you ‘cos you’re the most experienced member of the crew,” by which he meant oldest, not that Kliss minded. She was still young by the standards of her species, “and also, you know stuff. Spacey stuff. Probably comes from you being an alien. Although I suppose to you we’re the aliens.”

Kliss took pity on the young man and interrupted him. She liked the doctor. He was childishly enthusiastic about almost everything about space travel and cheerfully demurred to the more experienced crew members. Even Laure forgave his tendency to start talking and not be able to stop until someone made him.

“There shouldn’t be any problems doctor, so long as I do this right.”

“And if you don’t do this right? I’m not doubting you, just, you know, never hurts to be prepared.”

“If I don’t do this right, we’ll all be dead.”

“Ah.” There was a long silence and then Rory said, “Not really much need for me on this run then. I’ll get the RACK ready, just in case. And maybe make some noodles. Nothing prepared you for potential death like noodles.”

As he rang off, Kliss wondered, not for the first time, what had been going through the Captain’s head when he hired a combined Doctor and cook. Except that the sick bay was next to the galley, of course. Not that Rory wasn’t good at both his jobs, but Kliss still wasn’t entirely comfortable eating food prepared by a man whose job it was to put his hands in human fluids, however much he washed.

Sighing, she pushed three of her long slender apendages into the monoglove she wore for flying the ship. It was possibly to use controls designed for human’s two little hands with six tentacle like quirts, but it wasn’t easy. Sometimes she wondered what had been going through her head when she signed on with a human crew, but most of the time the company of her shipmates more than made up for the awkwardness of flying with controls not designed for Goreans.

_************************************************************_

The Captain sat back in his chair and surveyed the screens in front of him, tapping a rhythm on the com unit he held. 

“This is the Captain. Is everyone ready?”

“This is the bridge,” Laure’s voice said, “Me and Kliss are ready.”

“As ready as we’ll ever be,” Kliss’s light voice added.

“Engine room here. We’ve reduced the fuel tank spreader bar which should mean a shorter time between sparking and ignition. Could also explode and kill us, but I did some quick calculations and the odds of that happening are pretty small. Like, only about 20%. I’ve recalibrated the Wartenberg wheel, so Kliss shouldn’t feel any difference in handling terms.” Which the Captain understood was Cherry’s version of simply saying ‘Aye aye Captain’.

The Captain was about to give his final command when a fifth voiced piped from the com.

“This is the galley. I would like it on record that while flying with your guys is generally really awesome and obviously I trust you all, if we go into subdrop and I die, it’s all your fault Captain.”

There were murmurs of agreement from the bridge and engine room and the Captain grinned. He knew they’d be fine. He trusted his crew and he trusted his Sweet Gwendoline.

“Kliss,” he said into the com, “take us into subspace.”

**Author's Note:**

> I make it 21


End file.
